Carrie was nearby, and Roland rushed to her side. “Where are they?”
Kendra’s sister acted lost, standing there watching the people with wide eyes. She was soaked, and she blinked a few times, as if just waking from a nightmare. “Roland… I … Kendra was in the fields.”
Roland left her standing there, and Tony moved for the rover where Andrew had been working. He finally spotted Kendra, helping Evan out of the field. He was limping. The grass off the overflowing pathways was extremely wet, and his footsteps splashed with each long stride. This wasn’t good. The mist would envelop them soon.
Lightning arced over the midnight sky, and Roland’s heart jumped at the thunder that quickly followed, like a shadow. “Kendra!” he shouted over the noise, but the air felt thick. Sound didn’t travel well. This was a bad one, maybe the worst storm they’d encountered on this strange world, and a wave of unease passed through him.
“Rollie!” Kendra’s arm was around Evan, propping him up. “He rolled his ankle in the mud. We need to take him…”
Roland shook his head as she lifted him. “Find Andrew. It’s time!” He went to Evan’s other side, taking the brunt of the man’s weight from her.
She was dripping wet, like the rest of them, and her eyes hardened with understanding and resolve. “I understand. Are we set?”
“We’re set!”
Lightning forked over the skies again, drawing Kendra’s attention. The sound that followed wasn’t natural. It was Roland’s plan coming to fruition.
Kendra kissed him on the cheek and spoke into his ear: “We’ll be back. Take care of each other.”
He only nodded, watching her run toward Andrew. They stood at the far end of the rover, blocked from view of the nearest Eden station. Arthur was jogging around, herding the last few colonists outside, and another bang caused Roland to stare in the direction of the residences. The glow of the hovering drones caught his eye, and he smiled as he helped Evan to the shelter.
* * *
Kendra
“I shouldn’t leave her,” Andrew told her.
“We don’t have a choice, unless you want me to do this alone,” Kendra said, aware that would turn the tides. “They’re here to help. Keller and Roland and Tony. They have her back.”
“Then let’s get this over with.” Andrew lifted a hand, peering past the rover toward the Eden station. He waved Kendra forward, and she followed behind in the direction of camp, staying low.
Another loud bang erupted from the center of the dwellings where the Saints lived, and they ran faster, using the distraction to cut across the open side of the colony. No one stopped them. If there was anyone outside, they were either trying to find shelter or watching the robots revolt.
“Roland did well!” Andrew called to her.
They discovered the path to the water treatment plant quickly, and she hated that it was in the opposite direction from Andrew’s planted weapons. He still had the gun from Evan, and the rifle he’d taken from John. Kendra considered herself a compassionate person, but that was one evil man who’d deserved his fate. Regardless of Morris’ drugs, John had been bad news.
The path was soggy, their steps splashing water up their pant legs, and Kendra was surprised they hadn’t encountered the swirling mist yet. Maybe it was seasonal, and they wouldn’t have to deal with it at all.
The lake was picturesque even in the rainstorm. Thousands of tiny ripples spread across its surface as the water lapped against the pebbled shoreline. There were wonderful things about their new home. It was unfortunate they couldn’t live here, not with the current regime and Hound still pulling everyone’s strings.
Andrew was focused, already at the door to the plant, and his fingers rested on the keypad. He muttered to himself, uniform plastered to his skin, and Kendra moved beside him. “Do you remember it?”
He moved out of the way, clearly forgetting, and she tapped in the code Roland had made them memorize. The door opened, and she hurried to the panel where he claimed the packs were hidden. It was empty.
“What the hell?” Andrew asked.
Kendra’s heart pounded. If they didn’t have gear, they’d never make it a day in the wild. She ran her hands through her wet hair, pacing the room, and it clicked. An identical panel was on the opposite wall, and she ran to it, sitting on her knees as she pulled it free. The packs lay inside, but she didn’t waste time celebrating. Andrew took one, slung it over his shoulders, and she unzipped it, freeing the gas mask.
“Thanks, I almost forgot,” Andrew said. She walked around him, placing her palms on his cheeks.
“I’m worried about you. You need to concentrate, Andy. You have a lot on your mind, but I can’t do this alone,” she pleaded, and he clenched his jaw.
“I know…”
She kissed him hard, releasing him quickly after. “Are you with me?” she asked, almost smiling at his reaction.
“I’m with you.”
Kendra placed her mask over her face, cinching it tight, and added the hefty pack to her shoulders before rushing outside. She hated being unarmed like this, but they had no choice. Andrew led them along the lakeshore, moving the entire distance of the colony camp before cutting back through the trees. There was no path here, and the dense forest wasn’t simple to navigate.
By the time ten minutes had passed, Kendra was shivering, the pack felt too heavy, and she was breathing hard. Her face had scratches on it from errant branches, and she bumped into Andrew as he stopped suddenly.
The forest was silent, except for the constant pitter-patter of rain dripping from above. In the distance she thought she could hear shouting, but it might have been a trick of the wind. The sky flashed every minute or so, and thunder accompanied it, each time louder than the last.
“Where are the guns?” Kendra whispered.
Andrew pointed to a spot twenty yards ahead, and she wondered what he was waiting for, until she heard the snapping of a twig. It came from behind.
“Hands up!” the voice shouted, and Kendra slowly turned to see two Saints with guns pointed at them.
Mist crept up like snakes from the forest bed behind the enemy, but they didn’t seem to notice.
FOURTEEN
Val
Val stood by the closet in her quarters on the second floor of the Saints’ residences. She’d taken a shower and was changing into a clean white jumpsuit for the night. It was almost time for dinner to be served, and she was hungry. A muffled boom drew her eyes to the windows, and the blinds she’d drawn across them.
Val crossed the room and peeked out into the darkness, the sky black with a low ceiling of clouds. A bright flash of lightning forked across the sky, followed by another clap of thunder. Rain hammered on the glass and fell in undulating sheets, driven by the wind across the crimson fields and the leafy green crops beyond.
She shivered and rubbed her shoulders. Finally, it was raining. She just hoped it wasn’t aggressive enough to destroy all of their hard work with the crops. They needed food if they were going to survive. Supplies from the ship were running low.
Another clap of thunder pulled Val’s thoughts in a new direction. Had her dad and Kendra and the others made it safely inside? If only they would see that Mary wasn’t their enemy. Her mission was to help everyone live life on Eden to its fullest. Val hadn’t believed it until she’d experienced it for herself.
White curls of moisture rose steadily from the ground and rolled out from the forests with the wind. She couldn’t see anyone outside except for the pair of guards standing by Eden One, but they were wearing gas masks to filter out the hallucinogenic particles in the air. Her dad and the others must have found safety.
Another boom sounded, and the floor shook. It took a moment for her to realize that this time it wasn’t thunder. She saw the bright orange and yellow shapes of construction machinery rolling through the mist to reach the residences. One of them had already arrived—a bulldozer—and it had stopped right below her window.
&nb
sp; What’s it doing? she wondered.
It raised its bucket and swung it into the wall with explosive force. The floor shook again, and this time Val felt it giving way. A scream tore from her lips as she scrambled from the crumbling concrete. The wall collapsed and the glass shattered. Val tripped and fell, staring at the gaping hole. Rain and mist swirled in as the bulldozer raised its bucket for another blow.
Someone pounded loudly on her door. “What’s going on?” the voice demanded.
Val jumped up and pulled the door open. One of the reverend’s guards rushed in, his gaze darting around for trouble. He saw the damage and the bulldozer, and ran toward it with his rifle up and tracking, probably aiming for the driver. Except Val couldn’t see a driver. It was on auto.
Val plastered herself against the wall as the guard opened fire with a deafening report, but the bullets plinked harmlessly off the metal.
She spotted another two racing in to join it: a forklift and a dump truck. The machines were going crazy and attacking the building. Both the forklift and the dump truck drove into the base of the structure at full speed. They collided with a tremendous boom, and the sound of crumbling concrete and breaking glass.
“What in the name of...” The guard trailed off as the mist rolled over him. He let out a strangled cry and then dropped to the floor, his muscles spasming as if he were being electrocuted. His eyes rolled, and foam bubbled from his lips as the seizure went on.
Val took a quick step forward to help him, but he stopped seizing before she arrived. Fearing that he was already dead, and seeing the mist reaching for her next, she fled her room, screaming for help. Doors flew open in the hall as people emerged from their apartments, most bewildered, others terrified.
Another guard ran toward them from the direction of the stairs. It was Eve. She stopped and waved them toward her. “Everyone to the stairs!” Eve shouted as she slipped on a gas mask. The mist came curling out of several other rooms, and the lights in the corridor flickered with another boom that could have been thunder or a second attack from the rogue machines.
Whatever happened to that guard in my room, the mist had something to do with it, Val realized as she reached the stairs behind a screaming crowd of people. But the mist hadn’t driven those machines crazy. That had to have been something else. It almost seemed like someone had deliberately programmed them.
Roland, you idiot! He didn’t understand what he was doing. We can’t keep tearing everything to pieces and expect to survive! Val thought, shaking her head as she flew down the stairs to the ground floor of the residences. She heard and felt more collisions with the building between peals of thunder. As she reached the first landing and people pulled open the door at the bottom of the stairwell, new sounds came echoing in: the shouts of bewildered Saints screaming conflicting orders at each other, followed by the rattling roar of gunfire as they vainly tried to stop the assaults with bullets.
* * *
Andrew
“Move!” one of the two guards said—a man with dark skin and spiky black hair, slick and glistening with the rain. He gestured with the barrel of his rifle to indicate the way to camp.
Andrew kept his hands up and nodded agreeably. “You got it,” he said, his voice muffled by the gas mask he wore.
The mist rose steadily from the forest floor, wrapping around the two guards like a living entity.
“Hand over those masks!” the second guard said in a panicky voice. It was a woman with short brown hair and soft features. She started backing out of the trees, eyes wide, looking terrified. “Marshall!” she said, sounding out of breath. “I can’t—” She collapsed to her knees and began to shake.
“Paula?” The man half-turned to see her, and then he sucked in a noisy breath and collapsed in a jittering fit.
Andrew traded a shocked glance with Kendra. “We have to help them!” she said.
“Are you crazy?” Andrew replied, but she was already running to the man’s side. Andrew went with her, making sure to disarm him before he could recover.
“They don’t have masks!” Kendra said, casting about helplessly as the man flopped and skipped around like a fish out of water. Andrew took one look at him, saw him foaming at the mouth, and shook his head. He’d learned all about triage in the Marines. He ran over to check the woman, but she wasn’t faring any better. He seized her guns, strapped on the belt with a canteen and a sidearm, and then ran back over to Kendra with the second rifle.
“We can’t just leave them here,” Kendra said.
“We don’t have a choice,” Andrew replied, holding out a rifle and a Beretta to her. Kendra hesitated, peering at the man beside her. But he went abruptly still, and a moment later the woman in the grass beyond the trees stopped moving as well.
“Are they...” Andrew trailed off, watching as Kendra checked the man’s pulse.
She nodded slowly.
“What happened to them?” he asked.
“I’d guess they had some kind of seizure.”
“Yeah, but from what?” Andrew asked.
Kendra looked up at him, then glanced around at the murky gray soup seeping through the forest. “The mist.”
“It didn’t kill anyone before,” Andrew pointed out.
“No, it didn’t,” she replied, reaching for the rifle and slipping the shoulder strap over her head. She grabbed the pistol next and took the utility belt from the man, strapping it on before holstering the Beretta pistol.
“We need to get out of here,” Andrew muttered as he pulled Kendra up to her feet. “Come on.”
He nodded in the direction they should go—deeper into the forest. It was hard to tell if that was the right way or not, but he’d find his bearings after the storm abated. For now they just needed to put some distance between them and the camp before more guards came searching for these two. He took the lead, jogging through the black tree trunks. The cottony purple and blue leaves had fallen with the rain, melting away under the barrage to reveal an interlocking nest of branches overhead.
“They’re going to figure out that we’re missing and that we stole their guns,” Kendra said as they ran, her voice rasping loudly through her mask.
“Yeah, but hopefully they won’t realize it until we’ve made a good head start.”
“Right.”
The trees whipped by them, mist concealing the terrain ahead. Andrew’s lungs burned for air as the filtration mask restricted his breath, and soon he was forced to slow to a fast walk.
“I just had a thought,” Kendra said.
“What’s that?”
“Those guards looked like they were poisoned.”
“Right... so?” Andrew said, waiting for her to go on.
“Well, what if it was an overdose?”
“An overdose?” Andrew tossed a glance at her, and Kendra nodded.
“I saw things like that with the FBI.”
“Yeah, but from what?”
“Whatever’s in the mist. Think about it. The compounds in the mist make us hallucinate, so they’re definitely psychoactive. They also lower people’s inhibitions, or else they wouldn’t go crazy every time the mist emerges.”
“So you think the drug the reverend is giving people is interacting with whatever is in the mist?” Andrew suggested.
“That, or the drug is a derivative of the hallucinogens in the mist. Maybe that’s where Hound got it from.”
“Could be, I guess, but how did he synthesize a drug so fast? We were barely here for a few weeks before Mary found whatever it is and started giving it to people. You think that was enough time for Hound to test and synthesize a drug?”
“No, I think he created it long before we arrived, as part of some kind of last-resort protocol to keep order in the event of an uprising.”
“But Hound arrived with us,” Andrew objected.
“Did he?” Kendra asked. “You saw his lair. He couldn’t have built all that after landing. It was done ages ago. He’s some kind of alien robot, one with more
than one body at his disposal. Hound has been here for a long time, in at least one form or another.”
Andrew shivered, as much from the implications of their conversation as the cold and his wet, clinging jumpsuit. Kendra was right. He hadn’t stopped to think about it, but of course Hound had been here before. His human avatar might have arrived with them a month ago, but that wasn’t the first time he’d ever set foot on Eden.
“Do you think there’s more than one of them?” Andrew asked. “Of whatever he is?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just one computer controlling an endless number of machines,” she suggested.
“What’s the point of it? Why save us and then bring us here?”
“Shhh.” Kendra froze and swept her rifle around, scanning the murky shadows between the trees. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed. Rain poured down.
“What is it?” Andrew asked.
“Did you hear that?”
He shook his head and joined her in scanning the forest with his rifle. “What did it sound like?”
“Footsteps brushing through the leaves,” Kendra whispered, her voice barely audible above the rain.
They waited a few minutes, watching the trees for signs of movement. Andrew blinked sweat out of his eyes and worked to calm his racing heart. At least with their masks on, they weren’t hallucinating. He didn’t see any signs of predators stalking them. If those alien wolves were out there, maybe they had realized he and Kendra were immune to the mist, choosing to keep their distance as a result.
“I don’t see anything,” Andrew whispered. “We should press on. We’re still too close to camp.” He broke into a jog once more, crashing through the underbrush and kicking up soggy clumps of leaves as he went. Kendra ran alongside him, keeping pace, her eyes darting behind her mask. Every now and then, Andrew glanced back to check for signs of pursuit.
But there was nothing: no crouching four-legged wolves, nor bipedal humans from the colony. They’d escaped. Now all they had to do was make it to the western ridge and the valleys on the other side.
Final Days: Escape Page 10